Thursday, June 25, 2009

I tried to resist this, I really did. I'm supposed to be finishing projects. You know, that whole "52 Projects in 52 Weeks" thing I've been writing about? But after following Wendy's progress on her Girasole shawl, and finally seeing the finished project I could hold out no longer. I rummaged through the boxes of yarn stacked in the stash room, and finally found the skeins of Ranco Multy I bought on sale last year from Little Knits. * (Naturally, it took quite a bit of rummaging because they turned out to be in the one box I set aside because I knew that yarn couldn't be in that box, because that box was specifically for lace yarn, so there was no possible way I could have put fingering weight/sock yarn in that box because that box was clearly the laceweight box, so of course the Ranco would not be in that box. It was in that box. Right on top.)

Sooo, I paid for and downloaded the pattern, did a small swatch that clearly was not correct, said the heck with a swatch because it will block out fine anyway, tossed those needles in a box and put the pattern, new needles (guesstimating the correct size this time), and yarn in a basket, took my sleeping pill, and tottered off to bed.

I put on the iPod like I usually do, and waited to drift off to the sweet strains of Joshua Bell's violin. But I couldn't stop thinking about that shawl. Finally, I got up, retreived the basket and cast on.

Oh, it was blissful. I sat cross-legged on the bed, listening to the violin, knitting, frogging the first circular cast-on and casting on again without even muttering under my breath, working my way through round after round. I finished Chart A and started Chart B before my brain gave out somewhere around 1AM. Sometime around 4AM I woke up and thought about the shawl, but forced myself to resist the temptation. I'm not totally insane.

I woke to someone pounding on the door at 10AM to tell me the power company was going to be trimming our trees. Ok, whatever. I staggered back to the bed, picked up the basket, rubbed away the sleepy dust in my eyes, and started working the rest of Chart B. Before coffee. (Anyone see where this is going yet?)

Dum dee dum dee dum...Chart B was a breeze, and I finished it and decided it might be a good idea to have some coffee and get dressed before noon at least. I got dressed, made my tea (not coffee because the coffee pot was still dirty from yesterday because some slob around here spends more time knitting than housekeeping), and carried the tea and the basket into the sun room and settled in to start Chart C. Dum dee dum dee d...WHAT THE...???

Now let me say that this is a terrific pattern. The charts are clear and large, and the instructions are well-written with plenty of helpful tips. Anyone could make this pattern. Seriously. Anyone, that is, who can read and follow instructions and remember that a right-slanting slash means "knit 2 together" and a left-slanting slash means "slip, slip, knit" (or is it the other way around?) It's an important distinction (and I strongly advise that you look it up for yourself because I truly cannot remember at this point), and I have certainly done enough lace in my life that I should know by now which slanty line means what. I got it exactly WRONG for all of Chart B, which I found out as soon as I started Chart C.

Oh, the wailing and moaning and gnashing of teeth!! Well, not really. Since I had no coffee onboard, I simply didn't have the energy. I just muttered under my breath, figured out where Chart A ended, and ripped back to that point. Which is why you can see what appears to be an entire skein of yarn that has exploded in the basket in the photo above. It's really the former part of the shawl I was going to blog about, and that post was going to have an entirely different feel to it. The joy!! The delight!! But it was not to be.

By the way, I have now carefully written on the chart exactly what a right-slanting line and a left-slanting line mean. And I certainly don't blame Wendy for my slant issues. It's just that this wouldn't have happened if she hadn't made such a pretty shawl, and that wouldn't have happened if Sheri hadn't started the KAL, but it's really Jarod's fault for inventing beautiful patterns that contain those pesky slanty stitches.

*I would have bought the yarn from Sheri for this shawl, since she's the one that started the KAL, but I'm trying very hard to knit from my stash. (Mostly that's so I can rationalize that since I'm knitting from stash, I'm not really violating the spirit of the "52 Project" plan.) So, Sheri, I apologize. It's tacky to be KALing with one shop while using another shop's yarn, I know. But trust me, hon. I'll make it up to you, especially if I can ever hit the website at the exact same moment the Wollmeise gets put up!